I've been looking into some of the lore of the D&D\Pathfinder worlds, looking to find out what magic actually is. From what I've found it looks like all magic comes from a Deity (or nature somehow) whether it be Mystra and The Weave for arcane magic or some specific Deity for divine magic. Even divine magic, however, seems to need the medium of The Weave to be accessed by divine casters. There is also the Shadow Weave which functions the same as the Weave but is basically its inverse and is tended by a different deity.
There also seems to be things that divine magic can do that arcane magic simply cant. For example, all healing magic is divine and not arcane. More interestingly, however, all resurrection magic is also strictly divine magic. At first I thought that this might be because all magic that involves the manipulation of the soul would be divine magic, but that isn't actually true, arcane magic can manipulate souls as well, e.g. magic jar.
I understand from a game design standpoint why wouldn't want clerics to be able to do everything a wizard could do and vice versa, but is there an in-game or lore based explanation as to why only divine casters can heal and rez people and arcane casters can't?
They are intended to have different functions. Arcane magic is also generally more powerful than divine magic. Fireball, mind control spells, and spells that basically end combat are arcane spells.
Sorry, the in game reason is not there that I know of.
Arcane magic is magic of knowledge and study. Theoretically anybody could become a wizard, though most people lack the patience and understanding to master even the simplest cantrip. Whether the power comes from careful study and preparation or from channeling inner energy into formulaic magic you already know, Arcane is that of understanding the fundamental core of the universe.
Divine magic is magic of the gods and their servants. Granted to mortals by these omnipotent and omnipresent figures, supplicants gain their magic through devotion and piety. The magic isn't truly theirs; they are a mere conduit through which their god acts, and must remain within their patron's good graces or they may find this sacred gift revoked.
Psychic magic is magic of the mind. Unlike Arcane magic being internalized knowledge and calculations, psychic magic is born from true thought, and unlocked potential from deep within the mortal mind. It cannot be properly scribed into books, and those with the power do not need to be completely aware of what they are accomplishing; they don't try to use their knowledge to cast spells, they merely think their desires into reality.
Well I can't really speak for the exact reasons that arcane magic and divine magic functions as they do in Pathfinder (not any that state the specific laws governing them anyway).
To say that there are things that divine magic can do that arcane magic can't, and vice versa, is kind of true but healing and raising the dead isn't actually one of them. Both a witch and a Bard are arcane casters and they can both cast healing magic. Witches can, if i remember correctly, also raise the dead.
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I've been looking into some of the lore of the D&D\Pathfinder worlds, looking to find out what magic actually is. From what I've found it looks like all magic comes from a Deity (or nature somehow) whether it be Mystra and The Weave for arcane magic or some specific Deity for divine magic. Even divine magic, however, seems to need the medium of The Weave to be accessed by divine casters. There is also the Shadow Weave which functions the same as the Weave but is basically its inverse and is tended by a different deity.
That's the Forgotten Realms setting. In Pathfinder's setting, Golarion, there's no "magic-producing/ruling/controlling" deity. Magic just is.
There also seems to be things that divine magic can do that arcane magic simply cant. For example, all healing magic is divine and not arcane.
That's actually not true. Bards get cure light wounds as an arcane spell. Truth is that there are thematic differences, but the lines are blurred. For instance, with the right domain, a cleric can cast fireball.
More interestingly, however, all resurrection magic is also strictly divine magic. At first I thought that this might be because all magic that involves the manipulation of the soul would be divine magic, but that isn't actually true, arcane magic can manipulate souls as well, e.g. magic jar.
Again, not completely true. The wish spell is arcane only, and it can emulate any non-sorcerer/wizard spell of 7th level or lower. So a high level wizard can actually go ahead and resurrect someone.
I understand from a game design standpoint why wouldn't want clerics to be able to do everything a wizard could do and vice versa, but is there an in-game or lore based explanation as to why only divine casters can heal and rez people and arcane casters can't?
No. Because it's not true. It's generally true, but not universally so.
As you say, from a game design standpoint, the desire is to have different choices players can make. Classes and their abilities were created to make the choice matter. They need to be different. So while fighters and barbarians are similar, they're not identical. Similarly wizards and clerics are similar but not identical. From that mechanical origin, Pathfinder's settings speaks to the ways specific classes access their abilities. It doesn't speak to generalities because - again - the lines are not rigid.
Maybe clerics get healing spells given to them by their deities because like keeping worshipers alive. Arcane casters can do it, but don't generally bother because there are all those divine casters around to do it for them. Why study something you can just get a guy in a robe to do for you? Shrug. My point is that the fluff in Golarion doesn't speak to what you're asking, probably because there isn't a rule separating different spells rigidly into one category or another. Divine/arcane is more about how someone gets access to a spell and how they cast it than what the spell does, beyond theme.
Kjeldorn - Hmm this is interesting, I looked at some of the dead raising spells, and they all required a divine focus as part of their components. the cure spells, on the other hand, do not. None of the healing or resurrection spells appear on the wizard spell list. why is that? again the answer might just be so that the classes are differentiated but perhaps there is a lore reason.
Saethori - from what I've read, all magic ultimately comes from a deity and is accessed by way of the weave, even divine magic. the difference seems to be that when using divine magic the deity has to be involved in some way, whereas with arcane and possibly with psychic magic, one only needs to learn how to make use of the weave to be able to make use of the magic that Mystra made available to all. the question still remains though why none of the healing or rez spells are on the wizard list. Especially as Kjeldorn points out that arcane casters like Bards can use the Cure spells. What keeps the wizard from casting them?
Saethori - from what I've read, all magic ultimately comes from a deity and is accessed by way of the weave, even divine magic. the difference seems to be that when using divine magic the deity has to be involved in some way, whereas with arcane and possibly with psychic magic, one only needs to learn how to make use of the weave to be able to make use of the magic that Mystra made available to all. the question still remains though why none of the healing or rez spells are on the wizard list. Especially as Kjeldorn points out that arcane casters like Bards can use the Cure spells. What keeps the wizard from casting them?
You're quoting Forgotten Realms lore. That is irrelevant in Pathfinder.
Anguish - I went to the forgotten realms setting because that was the only place I could find any sort of robust discussion of what magic is, where it comes from, how people in the world access it, etc. Saying that it just is, is indeed an answer, but not a satisfying one. But again, from a game design\mechanics perspective, I understand that might be the best\only answer possible.
CrystalSeas - if there is somewhere in the Pathfinder lore that talks about what magic is, how it works, where it comes from, etc. could you point me to it? I would be interested to read it.
Then say "In the Forgotten Realms Magic is," you are confusing everyone for not distinguishing the two.
Sorry for confusing you. I'm open to talking about both, which is why I mentioned both in the OP. Like I said, the only real info I could find was from forgotten realms, so that's all I had to work with, under the assumption that there is an explanation for it all rather than just hand-waiving it and offering no explanation or information about it at all.
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EDIT:
Saethori - from what I've read, all magic ultimately comes from a deity and is accessed by way of the weave, even divine magic. the difference seems to be that when using divine magic the deity has to be involved in some way, whereas with arcane and possibly with psychic magic, one only needs to learn how to make use of the weave to be able to make use of the magic that Mystra made available to all. the question still remains though why none of the healing or rez spells are on the wizard list. Especially as Kjeldorn points out that arcane casters like Bards can use the Cure spells. What keeps the wizard from casting them?
That's strictly a campaign setting called Forgotten Realms.
The concept of "The Weave" doesn't exist in Pathfinder or Golarion.
In the FR campaign setting, the Weave is created and maintained by the goddess Mystra: originally a goddess called Mystryl before she died due a powerful mage named Stupid LeDumb Karsus who (foolishly) attempted to become the new god of magic; then her reincarnation named Mystra before her death during an event called the the "Time of Troubles", then the second Mystra who was a mortal chosen and prepared to be the successor-goddess (just in case the first died), then it kind of hung on for a while with the second Mystra just being a vestige, then she got better and magic made a full recovery.
The Shadow Weave was an invention of a rival deity named Shar (one of two mothers to the original Mystryl - specifically the evil mother, of the two), who wanted to destroy her daughter/her daughter's successor Mystryl/Mystra. It only existed during the 3rd Edition of D&D - with the advent of 4E it was destroyed along with the actual Weave with Mystra's death (a mistake on Shar's part - she wanted to be the only one with magic, but ended up losing it; oops).
In D&D, outside of Forgotten Realms, there is not necessarily any campaign setting (whether Greyhawk, Eberron, or anything else) that has a Weave - each of them has their own understanding of magic that functions differently.
For example, in Dragonlance, all Magic is governed by three goddesses instead of one: the good goddess of magic, the neutral goddess of magic and the evil goddess of magic; there is no "Weave" or "Shadow Weave" (those are exclusive to Forgotten Realms), there is just arcane and divine magic (though divine magic was blocked off for a while for in-world reasons).
On the other hand, in Dark Sun, arcane magic is more or less anathema, as it feeds off of the local life force: you literally have to defile the land around you, destroying vitality and fertility of the land, blighting it into desert in order to cast arcane spells. That leaves psionics as the preferred method of non-divine might. Similarly, though, divine magic isn't possible except for those that revere nature or the elemental planes (or "paraelemental planes" - a thing back then), because the gods were basically blocked out of the world.
Then you have places like Golarion (Pathfinder), or (in D&D) Greyhawk or Eberron: in those places magic doesn't have a Weave, has nothing to do with the gods, is un-associated with draining life force, and is simply an alternative to divine magic. Each of those places have different takes on gods (and thus divine magic): Golarion has gods without stats and five domains and six subdomains; Greyhawk has stats for their gods with three domains (or more if they expend godly energy to acquire them; this was later expanded, I think, to four or five plus more with godly expenditure, but it was never clarified); and Eberron may or may not actually have gods at all (it's unclear), but rewards faith of any stripe by granting that faith divine magic (though having a faith-based structure and church is a solid aid in building and maintaining faith; hence somewhat organized religions persisting beyond local personal cults).
So what you've read is correct... but only for very specific campaign settings, and only for D&D. Pathfinder is very much like D&D in some ways, but is different, and the Campaign Setting (Golarion) runs on its own rules. What's more, the outer planes of Pathfinder do not function in any way similarly to the outer planes of those other settings, and none of the gods have any overlap at all (outside of the Egyptian Pantheon sort of appearing in Forgotten Realms, Golarion, and Greyhawk*).
Hope that helps clarify what you've read and helps you understand how it differs from how Golarion works! :D
EDIT: I see you've actually got this down. Oh well, I'll leave this here in hopes of clarifying to people. Also 'cause I wrote it. :D
*
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Only the Forgotten Realms setting has the weave. Even in 3.0 none of the rule books even mention it so anything about the weave is strictly a Forgotten Realms issue. The default setting for Pathfinder is as Anguish mentioned Golarion which has an entirely different approach to magic. There are also a lot of other campaigns including many homebrew campaigns that have nothing to do with the Forgotten Realms.
The reason why various forms of magic are better at certain things is probably due more to the mental attitudes and aptitudes of the casters. Clerics are better at healing because they are more concerned with others than wizards and sorcerers. Clerics spend a lot of time supporting and dealing with the problems of their deity’s worshipers. Wizards on the other hand are more interested in the fundamental rules of the universe and don’t really pay that much attention to people. Bards are kind of jack of all trades and master on none so they get a little bit of everything.
Another thing to consider is that prepared divine casters have access to their entire spell list when they are capable of using a particular level. It requires very little effort on their part; they simply ask for something and get it. In a way they are not really doing anything they are merely acting as a channel for their deity.
Wizards on the other hand require a lot more effort. They have to learn each spell and each spell is completely separate from all others. Just because you know summon monster I, does not mean you know any other spells in that chain. If you want to learn to summon monster II you need to learn a whole different spell and record it in your spell book.
Sorcerers magic is inborn so they don’t learn anything they simple figure out how to tap powers they have always had. The way I see it a sorcerers spells are pretty much set when he is born. They really don’t choose what spells they know they always had those spells, but they may not have had the power or control needed to actually cast them. This is not an actual game rule but the way I personally view sorcerers. This is strictly fluff not anything to do with game mechanics.
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Anguish - I went to the forgotten realms setting because that was the only place I could find any sort of robust discussion of what magic is, where it comes from, how people in the world access it, etc.
That's fine, but that's a different game. It's really no different from discussing how things work in Ravenloft, Dragonlance, or Eberron.
That said, it did help to give us an idea what you're looking for.
Saying that it just is, is indeed an answer, but not a satisfying one. But again, from a game design\mechanics perspective, I understand that might be the best\only answer possible.
Well, to be fair, it's not satisfying to you. Many/most of us aren't worried about that particular detail of lore. To me, "it just is" is no different from getting fundamental about gravity and other laws of physics. They just are. At least in Golarion.
And no, "magic is" isn't the only answer possible. As you identified in Forgotten Realms, there is lore regarding its origin. It's just that in this game, there isn't.
Understand, Pathfinder is relatively new. When Paizo was sitting down and writing the setting, they made some very conscious decisions about how things work, and the biggest one is that: players matter more than anything else. So in Golarion, there isn't an Elminster, for instance. There are no real big-name NPCs that are movers and shakers. Even the deities are off-screen, assumed to be amusing themselves and they basically don't interact with the story that PCs participate in. Getting granular and detailed about "what is magic" is probably one of those things deliberately left undefined, so "what are the PCs doing?" stays foreground. But that's just my guess.
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All this discussion is great and I really appreciate people taking the time to type up responses. I understand that the weave etc came from the FR setting, but like I said, it was the only source of anything coming close to satisfying answers about the nature of magic. Let me simplify the question then,
"Why can't wizards heal people via. arcane magic?"
A number of people mention that wizards are more concerned with other things, but that's not really an answer. I can play a wizard that cares about people and might want to heal them. In fact, if I was a wizard who was concerned with gaining knowledge about the nature of the universe and I see someone, like a bard, making use of the same "power" that I am, and doing something with it that I can't do, I would want to know why. I would love to know if there is a lore driven answer. If there simply isn't, that's fine as well.
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"Why can't wizards heal people via. arcane magic?"
They can.
I repeat, specifically a bard gets cure light wounds as an arcane spell. I'm sure if I work hard enough, I can find a trait or feat laying around that lets a wizard cherry-pick a bard spell and put it on their list.
I also repeat, the designers of the mechanics of the game chose to - mostly - delineate the separation of magic themes to give different players things to do. Paizo has not bothered to codify that design decision into the canonical lore of their setting. Because of the reasons I mentioned.
In Forgotten Realms, you have you answer. In Golarion, the answer is that the people who wrote the setting left that detail completely blank. You as the DM are free to fill in that blank however you wish. You will not get a better answer than this, for this game.
Anguish - Thank you for taking the time to repeat yourself. I understand that you think you have answered my question.
To others who may still be interested in discussing this, it still seems strange to me that someone who is a learned arcane caster shouldn't be able to, under normal circumstances, i.e. by not taking some special feature or due to some racial predisposition, be able to cast all arcane magic, at least in principle. But the cure spells don't even show up on the wizard spell list. I'm wondering now what a classes spell list is even supposed to represent, from a lore perspective.
Also, I think the reason bards nowadays can do healing stuff in addition to arcane stuff is, if memory serves, bards used to be divine casters, using Druid spells, but have now, over time, become arcane casters while still maintaining some of their old abilities from when they were divine casters.
maybe to put the question yet another way, "Why is it that he arcane power or whatever fuels arcane magic cannot duplicate some of the divine magic, except by going to extreme lengths, like using a wish spell?"
I'm wondering now what a classes spell list is even supposed to represent, from a lore perspective.
There is nothing in any of the Pathfinder material that answers that question.
It's a blank slate. It's left up to the DM to create whatever material they feel important in order to run their personal campaigns. If you write a story about why that is so, you can use it as background for your players. Or you can leave it blank
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When I am talking about attitude and aptitude it more than just caring about people it is a whole world view. Think of it as the difference between and engineer and an artist. Both can create complex drawings but go about it in totally ways. The engineer is more concerned with angles and measurements, while the artist is more concerned with how the picture looks. The engineer is basically recreating the object on paper, where the artist is more concerned with capturing the look and often what emotional response it provokes.
Applying this to magic gets us two very different approaches to magic. The wizard is like the engineer and needs a deeper understanding of how things work to cast his spells. This is why intelligence is the wizard’s main casting stat. For him to cast the spell he may need to tap into specific types and amounts of energy from different planes or sources. The higher the level of the spell the more complex the requirements are. He is the one in control of all the energies with very limited help from outside sources.
The cleric on the other hand is more like the artist. He opens himself up to his deity and uses raw will power to handle the flow of energy from the deity. He also has a connection to his deity that allows him to more easily tap into certain energies than the wizard. He takes shortcuts and does not really need to understand how the spell works. The actual power of the spell is coming from the deities power not that of the cleric. Without the deities power the cleric is not able to cast the simplest of spells. This is also why clerics whose deity has died lose all class abilities.
The reason wizards cannot heal as easily as a cleric is probably because healing is one of the more difficult types of magic. The cleric has the advantage that his deity is the one doing the healing not himself. This is also the reason that the cleric has trouble doing other kinds of magic that wizard excels at. In that case the deity is not really all that interested in allowing the cleric to do that. That would also explain why certain clerics can cast spells that other clerics normally don’t cast. When deity makes a domain available to his clerics those spells are now on their list.
Also keep in mind that not all divine classes are good at healing. Druids and rangers for example are actually not that good at healing.